All the technologies are there already to reduce CO2. It only takes resolve and will. Solar, wind, geothermal...public transportation in lieu of automobiles or electric/hybrid automobiles.....Once THESE ARE UBIQUITOUS...well, just add up the tonnes of CO2 that WOULD NOT be emitted...
It is a profitable and UNTAPPED market and industry. Alternative energies and public transport - especially in the U.S. where we love oversized gas guzzling monster vehicles we call automobiles and where the cities are anti-pedestrian and people are obliged to hop into their car even if it would have taken them just ten minutes to get there on foot were the streets built differently. Why did we jump on the bandwagon of the silicon dotcoms, but refuse this new market and industry?
At any rate mankind is allowing their compulsion for "money" grappling to trump even their very survival.
This has always PUZZLED me.
How did Einstein put it? " Only two things are infinite. The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the former."

Global warming abatement is a good--perhaps the best--example of a "pure public good." If households actually exhibit willingness-to-pay to avoid a warmer planet, policies that encourage that will result in income growth equal to their cost; moreover, there will be net benefits from such policies. See: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1119316 (the idea was first discussed in The Economist many years ago...just read the paper in the context of global warming abatement as the specific public good).

Can you believe these Deniers? They must be stupid, racist, homophobic, misogynistic Teabaggers and stuff. Why else would they disagree with a one-size-fits-all, top-down restructuring of the world's free-market economies by a bunch of lawyer-politicians who have never worked a real job in their lives?

Remember, if unpopular legislation is forced down our throats, it's for our own good, even if some of us are too dense to know it. We need more government and we need it now!!!!!

Now pardon me while I get back to admiring my big brain in the mirror...

Good thought but, it turns out higher concentrations of CO2 do not promote better plant growth. Also, power plant put out high volumes of CO2; the volume of crops needed to neutralize the CO2 production will surprise you.

It is too late now. The need for endless growth, and hence consumption, combined with the political might of the oil, coal and gas companies will insure that no meaningful changes will take place. Global warming will diminish when human population and/ or affluence has been reduced to the point where fossil fuel consumption drops and net CO2 sequestration occurs. The Earth is a closed system with efficient feedback mechanisms, it will take care of itself. As for our species, I think we will survive in smaller numbers. But the endless pondering, writing, arguing is all too late. Better spent the energy planning our survival strategies with our new world.

@bamps - if you actually read any of the papers on climate change (by reputable scientsts as opposed to opinionated know-nothings), you would understand that the effect of global warming is to cause more extremes of weather. These may include unusually cold weather as well as droughts. But we are talking about a 0.8degC average temperature increase in a world in which normal annual variations of temperature are 50x or more this amount, so yes, there will still be "random anomalies".

To stave off looming cataclysm, we need to try EVERYTHING, and soon, or otherwise we will be remembered as the generation that did too little to late. What we need are two things: a cheap and effective carbon capture and storage system and a massive geo-engineering program aimed at cooling off the planet. Now if only a billionaire with a hero complex would just step forward and dangle a bankroll big enough to interest the brilliant scientists and engineers needed to make these happen soon.

It's been rather chilly over here in Europe. It was around 20°C (under 70°F) during the day today. I'm still wearing my long-sleeve shirts. Couple days ago I had to put on my coat, actually. In the summer months it can get up to 38°C (~100°F) in these parts. I'm not complaining though. It's perfectly comfortable as it is. If the temperature is unbearable where you live, just remember, it's hot because Jesus hates you. Repent.

Yes, perhaps prizes for achievements in non-carbon energy generation are useful. But we also need a price on greenhouse gas emissions and public (and private) investment in R&D and actual implementation of generation capacity.
Vested interests have managed quite well to stall serious policy changes so far, but they can't hide the truth for ever. We need to keep pushing. Knowledge that tobacco causes death and disease cost decades to translate to effective policies (and this is still ongoing in many countries). For climate change we can do better.
Public opinion can change quite quickly. A few images of airplanes sinking in tarmac might to more than a hundred scientific papers. It's hard to forecast what will make the difference or when, but something will make fossil fuels look like dirty and old-fashioned.

It would help if institutions like The Economist communicated more effectively about climate change and the importance of not burning all of the planet's fossil fuels.

The Economist does endorse carbon taxes, but it also continues to treat continued economic growth as the most important objective for governments. If governments keep focusing on short-term growth based on fossil fuel use, the world human beings inhabit in 100 years will be deeply destabilized and impoverished by climate change.

So... there's already a prize for pulling CO2 out of the air. It's the "Virgin Earth Challenge".

There's 5 or 6 actual non-boondoggly efforts towards fusion power that are garage-scale compared to the ITER and NIF projects. "Polywell" and "Focus Fusion" are the two most likely (still low near-term probability) technology candidates.

The primary Polywell group is working under an ONR non-disclosure, so we only get drips and drabs of their research, but you could probably make a progressive prize for some number of neutrons-from-fusion, then another for ignition, to bring other players into the space.

I guess the counter-argument is that if any of them can get ignition they can write their own ticket -- so they're already fairly incentivized. The only way I can see to make that valuable is to give them a stepped series of prizes so as to make the value-cliff not be quite so high.